Hurrah! Hurrah! Great Africa wakes;
We should never make day night
A proverb for every day,
There`s music in my happy Soul:
My song of joy I sing to you:
I crave no other fortune great,
This music in my soul today
Black men worship at thy virginal shrine of truest love,
When Africa stood at the head of the elder nations,
Thy transcendent marvelous beauty made the whole world mad,
You, in all ages, have attracted the adoring world,
Today you have been dethroned, through the weakness of your men,
Because of disunion you became mother of the world,
From the handsome Indian to European brunette,
Who have borne trials and troubles and racial burden.
Bearing our banners to Vict`ry, men of Afric`s might.
February 28, 1927
,
Like America for the Americans:
This the rallying cry for a nation,
Be it in peace or revolution.
She is calling her sons, and none forsakes,
But to colors of the nation runs,
Even though assailed by enemy guns.
Cry it loud, and shout it Ion` hurrah!
Time has changed, so hail! New Africa!
We are now awakened, rights to see:
We shall fight for dearest liberty.
That made life`s burden great,
We long for the passing year
To close our sad book of Fate:
But if we should stop a while,
And think once the other way,
Life would be just all a smile,
As we, go on day by day.
For to darken life,`s good view;
Round that turning is the light
That shines as a guide to you:
Think of all that`s really good,
Then make it your daily rule;
Smile with Nature`s Brotherhood,
And none make your footstool.
And one more for each good night,
Should make life so pleasant, yea,
Would lead us to live all right:
Turn not from sane rectitude,
But make life just like a song,
Go ye not with the multitude
To any path that`s wholly wrong.
October 24, 1927
A joy of heart not there before:
This state of conscience I relay
To rich and proud and meek and poor.
From Heaven`s realm doth truly flow
This music in my happy Soul,
My conscience tells me riglitly so.
Let peace and love forever be
Among ye men of every hue,
Of every land and charted sea.
But joy to live in peace with God;
My hopes are fixed on His Estate,
In faith so true as prophets had.
I spread in truth with love unfurled;
On waves of cheer it goes, I pray,
To reach around the belted world.
August 23, 1927
Among other women thou art royal and the fairest!
Like the brightest of jewels in the regal diadem,
Shin`st thou, Goddess of Africa, Nature`s purest emblem!
Because in thine eyes are virtue`s steady and holy mark,
As we see in no other, clothed in silk or fine linen,
From ancient Venus, the Goddess, to mythical Helen.
The Gods used to travel from foreign lands to look at thee:
On couch of costly Eastern materials, all perfumed,
Reclined thee, as in thy path flow`rs were strewn-
sweetest that bloomed.
Bringing Solomon to tears as he viewed thy comeliness;
Anthony and the elder Ceasars wept at thy royal feet,
Preferring death than to leave thy presence, their foes to meet.
And caused many a bloody banner to be unfurled:
You have sat upon exalted and lofty eminence,
To see a world fight in your ancient African defense.
While, in frenzy, those who of yore craved your smiles and your hand-
Those who were all monsters and could not with love approach you-
Have insulted your pride and now attack your good virtue.
Giving tinge of robust color to five continents,
Making a greater world of millions of colored races,
Whose claim to beauty is reflected through our black faces.
There is a claim for that credit of their sunny beauty
That no one can e`er to take from thee, 0 Queen of all
women
Once more we shall, in Africa, fight and conquer for you,
Restoring the pearly crown that proud Queen Sheba did wear:
Yea, it may mean blood, it may mean death; but still we shall fight,
Superior Angels look like you in Heaven above,
For thou art fairest, queen of the seasons, queen of our love:
No condition sball make us ever in life desert thee,
Sweet Goddess of the ever green land and placid blue sea.